Piranha Died

My piranhas killed one another one of my piranha. There was only a head left. Is it, because of territory disputes?

 

a while back when i kept RBP's they got into a few disputes of territory but not much damage. was one of ur fish sick? mine was and since it was sick it all of a sudden became focused on by the other pirahnas and was eventually made into a floating head just like yours.....what an eerie sight it was seeing that how it used to be alive and eat feeders, it was now just a floating head with its mouth wide open staring on (head was untouched) sorry if that is to graphic for anyone, although i doubt it is. what size tank are they in, how many are there, how big are they, and do u feed them on a regular basis?

 

ever get the feeling some people are.... differnt? :lol: j/k. sorry about your fish.

 

20 gallon tank there was about 4 of them. Each range a bout an inch. Im not too sure if it was hungry cuz i feed them alot

 

Say if they were hungry wouldnt they go for the sucker fish i had in there? And i bought them when they were the size of a dime and it came with a feeder guppy, but they never ate that for some reason.


Also the piranhas sometimes like to chase each other around the tank is that natural, or are they supose to swim in schools peacfully with each other?

 

aww thats quite sad. my guess would have been hunger.

 

I can't see hunger causing that behavior. I've heard that piranhas can be kept with smaller fish safely. I saw on a different forum once where someone kept zebra danios and cardinals in with her piranhas for a long time and there were no problems. Her piranhas were like 20 times the size of the ZDs too.

I vote for it being sick and the other piranhas just "taking care of the problem".

 

yeah maybe it was tinas ideas

 

How big is your tank?

 

20 gallons :shock:

 

Maybe you should have had them in a bigger tank, even if they were only an inch.

 

Piranhas generally don't eat each other for food, rather its more of a territorial issue. Although if you fish was sick, then the other Piranhas will take advantage of it and eat it. Piranhas will eat other fish in the tank that are weak.


However 20 gallons for 4 RBP is way too small. You need at least a 75 gallon for them.

So basically it could either be because it was sick or because it was in a tank that was too small.

As for them being kept with Danios and other fish like that it is mostly b/c those fish are very quick and a waste of time and energy for a much larger piranha to catch. It would be burning more calories than eating. Sooner or later almost everything kept in a tank with P's will be eaten, its just a matter of time.

 

I think one of the stems of your problem was the size of your tank! 20 gallons is way to small for 4 piranhas! I could have definetly contributed to the death of your fish! Also, I'm sorry to hear that your fish died, I know how you feel because me and my brother spend over $60 on 6 baby piranhas and they died within 2 weeks cause my brother's friend's daughter somehow managed to feed the fish potato chips!

 

so sorry to hear that i hate when my fish died

 

thats really sad. most prob. the fish where cramped or something like that.

 

Thanks!

 

did anyone find the real cause?

 

Its not that cramped its a 20 long tank. And im not keeping them in there forever

 

o, ok.

 

This usually can only be done with large piranha and small fish like you said. The small fish are too quick for them to catch, and not worth the effort for them to eat. It wont work with small piranha.

Like Enfuengo said, eventually anything put in a piranha tank will be killed or eaten, just a matter of time.